things you said
by fiadorable
Summary: Collection of "things you said when..." prompts (multiple pairings) from tumblr. New chapter: dimples believer things you said i wasn't meant to hear
1. oq when you were crying

_Missing Year comfort fic is my fav_

* * *

He's no stranger to darkness, both the absence of light and the oily blackness that creeps (invited) into mankind's heart. Dexterous fingers honed on picking rich men's locks tug at fine, corseted laces, tumble waves of dark hair, and the careful study of angled silhouettes in the light supply preordained paths for eager lips to travel in the privacy of night.

Whatever this is between them, the darkness consumes them together, swallows their rounded sighs and sharp cries, spells them away from the clarity of dawn.

Two become one, and then become (reluctant) two once more, and though parting is such sweet sorrow, as she'd told him once, he knows the tears now drifting down her cheeks spring not from anything as bright as release or joy. Her trembling lip taps the recesses of his own grieving heart, a double thump of empathy coalescing behind his breastbone. Silent tears shift to soft weeping, her delicate hand sliding to cover her mouth, but where he next thought to find the stinging lash of her tongue, he finds only weary acceptance at his witness of her vulnerability.

He slides from the cradle of her hips, curls their bodies together until her body nests in his, an arm slung heavy across her middle while the other clutches her shoulders to his chest. She turns her face, muffling her sobs in the warmth of the sheets, but he feels the weight of her anguish like gravity's inexorable pull.

Not even the finest poets could fill an empty heart fractured with loss. He speaks in subdued caresses, punctuates with secreted kisses, tucking them behind the strong line of her jaw as he listens to her reply hidden in the firm grip on his forearm. Her body contracts with sorrow, attempts to expel the grief and guilt clotting her lungs, the agony of loss never to be recovered.

She's no stranger to the darkness, either, but for tonight, at least, she won't walk through it alone.


	2. oq when you were scared

_Post "The Price", Camelot edition_

* * *

Her fingers tremble against her belly as she stands before the wardrobe, tracing the muted pink beading pebbling her bodice in the guttering candlelight. Regina twists in place, casting a concerned glance over her shoulder toward the large bed draped in shadows.

Her eyes haven't adjusted to the dim light yet, but Robin's breathing is strong and steady as he sleeps.

She expels a shaky breath, and turns back to the wardrobe, resting her forehead against the cool, dark wood, listening to his soft exhales. Always the Evil Queen, even when I'm not. Her fingers clench, nails scraping across delicate crystals as she stands up straight, sliding her hands from belly to back and fumbling with the laces cinching her dress.

Warm hands fall to her upper arms, stroking light paths elbow to shoulder. She jumps, swallowing a cry as she half turns into a broad chest.

"Sorry," Robin murmurs, releasing her. "I'm sorry, love. I thought you heard me get up."

"No, it's okay." Regina relaxes against him for a moment before straightening and attacking the knot at the small of her back again. "I'm sorry I woke you."

"I meant to wait up for you." He drags his knuckles down her back, stilling her hands. "May I?"

She presses her lips together and nods, wiping her sweaty palms down the front of her dress. Robin helps her step out of the pink monstrosity and then drapes it over the back of a chair while she slips a filmy white nightgown over her head.

"You still have facepaint here," he says, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. She tilts her head further into the cup of his palm until he shifts his hand lower, trailing two fingers over her mouth, catching slightly on her lower lip. "And here." Both of his hands lift to her face, keep her steady as he grazes her eyelids with the softest of kisses. "And there as well."

Tears slip from below her lashes as she leans back, sniffling at his crooked grin and disheveled hair sticking straight up on the side of his head like a little boy's. "Don't ever do that again," she whispers. "I am not worth your life." She passes her hand in front of her face, magicks away the makeup and the sloppy updo at the back of her head until her hair pools at her shoulders.

Robin frowns, grips her elbows and pulls her close, and she allows the tender caress of his thumb across the soft underside of her arm though it distracts her from her tenuous anger, the fluttering edge of deep-seated fear still churning in her gut that doesn't quite believe him when he says, "You are worth _everything_."

"I will never not be the Evil Queen. I will never have a shortage of enemies. Emma already sacrificed herself, now you, and even Henry tried to—" She hiccups, tries to catch her breath as Robin wipes the tears from her cheeks.

"I'm fine. Clean bill of health, courtesy of Emma." He guides one of her hands to his side. "Nary a scar to be found."

Regina walks gentle fingers across his stomach, probing where she saw the blade enter. "I watched you die, Robin. How would I have explained your death to Roland?"

Her prodding grows more insistent. There was blood. So much blood. A gaping wound meant for her own flesh that none of her magic could fill.

Robin's fingers circle her wrist, draw her restless hands to his chest. "There's no one I trust more with my boy." He dusts her knuckles with feathered kisses. "I'm alive and well, love, and so are you. Come to bed."

Limbs tangle, hidden beneath rich, embroidered blankets, knees and elbows tucked into hollows and bends as they shift around each other, into each other, until they find peace enough to drift into sleep's welcome embrace


	3. oq too many miles between us

_Post 4a, naturally._

* * *

 _Hello, um, Regina, I forgot you don't answer unknown numbers. Especially in the middle of the night. Should have remembered that. So I suppose I'll just leave you a message then, yeah?_

 _Anyway, you're probably sleeping. I'm told people like to sleep at quarter of three in the morning._

 _So, yeah._

 _Roland asked after you and Henry again today. He's discovered the comics that come folded in the daily paper and has decided to illustrate his own strip so that you'll see it when you drink your coffee in the morning. I hadn't the heart to tell him Maine doesn't receive the same papers as New York. At least, I don't think you do._

 _You wouldn't believe how tall the buildings are here. I'm sitting on something called a, um, "fire escape", a sort of external ladder and stair system rigged to the exterior wall. Should the building catch fire, rendering the internal corridors impassible, we'll be able to climb down to safety. I hope we never have need of it other than as a place to sit and think._

 _Listen, I, uh, I know you wanted to not speak for a while, to rip the band-aid off, so to speak, which I have now experienced, by the way, and you're right, it bloody hurts, and I don't know if it's been enough time now, or if there ever will be time that's enough, but something, uh… something's happened and—_

—Beep!

"If you would like to edit your message, press pound. If you would like to delete your message and start over, press zero. Otherwise, you may hang up or press star for more options."

Robin lowers the phone, thumb hovering over the digital keypad. He glances over his shoulder, through the window of the darkened bedroom he shares with Marian. The bed is empty, but a crack of light escapes below the small bathroom's door. She must be sick again.

The phone prompts him once more, and he blows out a rush of air, thumping his head back against the brick. He shouldn't have called; hearing her voice on the recording (Regina Mills, spoken in her no-nonsense elocution), it drizzled a soothing, honeyed balm over his soul while branding his heart, as her affectations were always (are) wont to do.

Behind him, the window creaks and groans. Marian pokes her head through the opening, puzzled, sleepy, drawn. "What are you doing out here?"

"Nothing."

He thumbs the zero key, and then disconnects.


	4. dq when you thought i was asleep

_Missing Year_

* * *

Of course no one thought to coordinate who would be providing breakfast for the refugees within the castle walls that the first morning.

Not knowing how long her sister was in residence, she's relieved to find a number of their stored grains in the cellar just before dawn, unspoiled and untouched by the green-skinned witch. She slices into a sack of oats, scooping out a generous portion, and retreats to the pantry in search of cinnamon, the apples she'd plucked from her realm-jumping tree weighing heavy in her pocket.

Voices in the kitchen drive her into a small cupboard, the door cracked as two sets of feet descend the three steps into the pantry.

The thief's boy bounds into the room, clutching the plush she'd transfigured for him on the road to his chest with both arms, followed by his sleep-rumpled, yawning father.

"But why would she be asleep when the sun is already waking up?"

"Roland, the sun has barely woken."

Regina keeps to her hiding place, pressing the bowl of oats to her belly. She has no desire to be found skulking about her own kitchens by anyone, least of all the thief and his son.

The boy plops his stuffed toy on a table, sneezing as a layer dust puffs into his face. "Me and Squawk are hungry, so wouldn't she be hungry, too?"

"Squawk and I," the thief corrects, ruffling his son's curls and sitting him atop the table.

Plus one point for good grammar, minus three points for bottoms on tables instead of in chairs, she thinks, and then subtracts fifty from herself for the warm glow burrowing in her chest to see the boy enjoying his gift enough to name it something as ridiculous as "Squawk".

Another tousled, chestnut-haired boy ghosts across her vision, tottering toward the table on sleepy feet, dragging a floppy teddy bear by the leg. He plops down next to Roland, burying his head in the bear's stomach as he yawns. Regina blinks once, then twice again to clear the moisture from her eyes, and the boy is gone, leaving only the thief's son kicking his feet in the air.

"She might be hungry when she wakes, but the queen may choose to sleep well into the day."

Roland sketches doodles into the dust on the table as his father pokes through what little food remains. "How come?"

"Do you remember how tired you were when we arrived last night?"

"I fell asleep on Uncle John's shoulder."

"Well, I'd wager the queen was even more tired than you, because before we stumbled into each other in the woods, she traveled here from a whole other realm."

"The place with no magic?"

"Indeed. And not only that, but she went face to face with the Wicked Witch, too, while we were making sure the castle was safe for you to come stay."

"Oh," Roland says, mollified. "But maybe later today me and—I mean, Squawk and I can say thank for saving us?"

"We'll see what the day brings, m'boy. Which may not be breakfast," the thief says, frowning at the offerings displayed.

Honestly, does she have to do everything? Regina waves her hand, and the sack of oats she'd cut open lands with a thud at the opposite end of the table, spilling some of its contents, along with half the apples she'd picked for herself and a small mound of cinnamon.

Roland yelps, snatching Squawk to his belly, and a hot vein of remorse threads through her chest at his fear. She pushes open the door until it begins to catch and creak, making eye contact with the thief as he approaches the spoils with his dagger drawn. He opens his mouth to say something, but whether greeting or chastisement, she'll never know. She holds her hand up to stay his comment, shaking her head, not wanting Roland to know she's there, and he closes his mouth, nodding once in thanks before she vanishes in a subdued swirl of purple smoke.


	5. rb i wasn't meant to hear

_AU from post-season 5a_

* * *

It's not that he's run away.

It's just that he's not at the library, where he said he was going when he stomped out of the house, nor is he at Granny's, the sheriff's station, or anywhere else in Storybrooke.

Which leaves only one place.

 _And he had better be there_ , Regina thinks, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she picks her way through the forest. Dusk's last blush hangs heavy and low on the horizon, cloaking serpentine tree roots and sudden elevation dips in a haze of bruised purple. She should have brought a flashlight. Hell, she should have brought her car, but she's too close to go back for either one now.

Through the trees, a soft white light dangles from the railing of the playground's upper platform. One of her crank-operated LED storm lights, if she's not mistaken. Two figures sit on either side, chatting quietly as evening fades to night, and as Regina draws closer, she's able to pick out both Henry and Grace's features.

Thank goodness.

She fishes for her cell phone in her pocket, intending to call Emma and let her know she's found him, there's no need to organize a manhunt, when Grace's sweet voice filters through the buzzing hum of the forest settling into its nocturnal routine.

"Maybe your mom's just trying to give you space? You know, since you told her you had a lot of homework this weekend?"

Regina shoots Emma a quick text instead of calling, and then creeps closer, keeping well outside the light's halo behind a tree.

Henry taps the side of his shoe against one of the metal support poles, a dull, ringing thud keeping imperfect time with the forest's concerto. "Maybe. I dunno. I just… I've always wanted a bigger family, and now that I have that it's great, but I'm not quite sure where I fit in sometimes, you know?"

Regina's fingers dig into tree bark. The annoyance and anxiety twisting in her belly pops and fizzles with shame, disappointment. To say things have been hectic in their household would be an understatement of graphic proportions. She's stretched in more directions now than ever before, but to hear her son say he feels like he doesn't fit into his own family guts her.

"Hmm. You're not the only one with a complicated family," Grace says, her legs swinging slow and easy in the open air, movement as if for the simple pleasure of feeling a knee bend, the rush of blood pooling in a foot. "I'm pretty sure it's a requirement to live here."

"Something."

The teens fall silent, contemplative, but then Grace rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder into Henry's. "Okay, stop moping and tell me what happened between you and that girl from Camelot."

"I don't kiss and tell," Henry insists.

"Oo, so there was kissing!"

 _I should not be here for this._ And yet she remains rooted next to the tree, fingers digging even harder into the bark as she listens. This girlfriend-who-wasn't hasn't been mentioned since her departure, and while, yes, things have been busy, she'd thought they weren't too busy to share things like this anymore.

"I never said that."

"You implied."

Henry sighs. "I never got the chance. There was so much going on with my moms and Zelena and Killian and the Underworld and… She kissed me on the cheek when I got back her horse, and I might have kissed her on her cheek before Mom sent them back. But that's it."

"That's something," Grace says, and Henry presses his lips together and bobs his head once, that familiar jerk of embarrassment Regina's come to recognize in her son more and more these days.

Before anything else potentially mortifying can be let into the open, Regina steps into the light, squinting as she looks up at the teens' perch with one hand shielding her eyes. "Henry, I've been looking all over for you."

"Mom! How long have you been here?" He tilts the light away from her, sends it skyward instead.

"Not long," she demurs, lowering her hand. "But it's time to come home now."

 _Please, come home. I don't know how dinner will turn out because I left Robin alone with a baby fighting an ear infection and a six-year-old with proclivity for diving head-first off the furniture while the macaroni and cheese was in the oven, but come home and help me dry the dishes after dinner and we'll talk like we used to, it's not too late for that, it can't be, please._

He stares at her, sizing her up, seeing through her lie about how long she's been eavesdropping for sure, but he nods, says, _Okay_ , and knot in her gut unwinds a quarter turn inside.

"I should get going, too," Grace says, standing and climbing down the ladder behind Henry. "I told my dad I'd only be gone an hour, and it's definitely been longer."

Henry shoots Regina a meaningful glance as Grace slides down the slide. "We'll walk you home."

Regina nods, smiling, if a tad awkwardly, at the young girl standing next to her. "Of course."

On the platform, Henry gives the LED light several good cranks, then clips it to his belt as he slides under the railing and shimmies down the support pole, and God help her she stretches out a hand to cushion the fall he never takes. He lands on both feet, crouching with the impact, as though it's a motion he's gone through several times before. Regina closes her eyes for a moment, breathes, and then opens them to find him grinning.

"Don't do that," she chastises lightly, pulling him close and kissing his temple. "At least not around me, please."

"Deal." Henry ducks out of her embrace, and she lets him, falling into step beside the two teens as they make their way out of the forest and back to town.


	6. sq i wasn't meant to hear

_There is totally a precedent for Emma lounging around the house with no pants on._

* * *

They were supposed to sleep in today, the both of them, so when she wakes and finds Emma long gone, enough that the middle of the bed is cool below her palm (because let's not kid anyone, the savior is a big fat bed hog), Regina is, in her opinion, justifiably miffed. She'd had plans for Emma this morning, involving both of them being naked and cozy and tangled up in each other below the duvet as the sun crept across the sky.

She shrugs her robe across her shoulders, not bothering to tie the belt as she scoots bare feet across the carpet, heading for the bedroom door. The warm, sizzling crackle of frying bacon fills the house with a delicious, sinful smell. Emma has the radio tuned to one of the 80s, 90s, and now stations, her mezzo-soprano floating over the music and the kitchen clankings of breakfast-making.

Regina sighs as she walks toward the kitchen. So much for surprising Emma with breakfast in bed. She'll have to come up with something else to spoil her today. As she enters the kitchen, she stops and leans against the floor to ceiling cabinets, watching her lover bounce about the room.

She's fresh faced and pink from the shower with her damp hair swirled into a bun atop her head, clad in only a pair of black boy shorts and fitted gray tank top. Emma tips a plastic bowl filled with pancake batter into a funnel, a soft, _Ack!_ escaping her as her phone chitters on the counter, a stream of batter sloshing over the side when she scrambles to answer the call. She swipes her finger along the edge of the bowl and then wipes her hand on a dishtowel before picking up the phone.

"Hey kid, what's up? Having fun at Mom and Dad's?"

Emma tucks the phone between her jaw and her shoulder, screwing on the tip of the batter-filled bottle and shaking it a few times to make sure the lid is secure. A tab of butter lands on an empty skillet with another sizzle. She's quiet for a while, listening to Henry singing her Happy Birthday, Regina presumes, poking at the bacon and snatching her hand away from the vicious grease popping and cracking.

"Thank you. No, she's still asleep. _I_ am making pancakes. Yes, the fun squiggly kind."

Emma twirls a pair of tongs around her fingers once before flipping the crispy strips of meat, and damn if Regina's stomach doesn't grumble aloud as the blonde begins drawing looping shapes on the pancake skillet with the squeeze bottle.

"But I _like_ making breakfast. Regina always wakes up before I do and practically has a four-course meal ready for us before I've even hit the shower."

 _Since when does she enjoy cooking?_ Regina wonders, and Henry must have asked the same thing because Emma lets out an indignant squawk, saying, "Since she sent us to that apartment in New York and I had twenty-eight years of Regina's cooking knowledge jammed into my brain."

Oh. That would do it. Regina crosses her arms across her stomach. At least she knows Henry ate well during their separation.

"Besides, today is a special day. No, not just because it's my birthday."

Emma flips the pancake, twists the knob on the stove until the blue flame below the bacon flickers out. She leans against the counter with one hip, eyes trained on the cooking food.

"Today's the day you found me in Boston."

Regina's breath catches in her throat.

"And you know, your mom and I didn't really hit it off well in the beginning, but we came around, and now I have you and I have her and my parents and so many other wonderful things in my life now. Today isn't just my birthday. It's the anniversary of finding my family."

Emma shifts the finished pancake off the skillet and starts another one, drooping more lazy lines of batter across the hot surface. She glances up as she snags a piece of bacon, crunching the end between her teeth delicately, and her eyes meet Regina's, widening for a moment and then softening as she sees her wiping away a stray tear.

"Hey, kid, I gotta go. Your mom's awake. No, we are not going to do gross things all over the house."

Emma nods at Regina and mouths: _Oh yes, we are._

Regina laughs, grinning as she walks further into the kitchen to inspect her handiwork. Emma offers her a strip of bacon, but she declines, leaning over to see what she's done with the pancakes. The first hotcake has their initials burned into the surface in wobbling script, and as she flips the second, she sees "4 eva" seared into its face. She shakes her head, ducking over to the refrigerator to snag the fresh strawberries she'd picked up yesterday, and starts rinsing and slicing them as Emma finishes up her goodbyes to their son.

"You're up early," Regina says, setting the bowl of berries next to the stove while Emma drizzles the last of the batter into the pan.

"I know, I know. We were supposed to laze around in bed all morning, but I was wide awake at seven and you're just so damn adorable when you sleep that I couldn't bear to wake you."

"I am not."

"You are so," Emma says, leaning over to peck her on the cheek, the wild edge of a grin dancing on her lips.

Regina shakes her head, sliding her arms around Emma's waist, laying her cheek against her back. She smiles as Emma starts singing along with the radio again, the gentle thrumming of her heart and her song tickling her face as she presses a soft line of kisses from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. "Happy birthday, Emma," she whispers.


	7. cs when i told you i was pregnant

_Captain Swan. Pretend the Dark One/Camelot plot never happened._

* * *

Emma stands at the island, peeling apples in Regina's kitchen on the fourth Friday afternoon in April, and tries to keep her gaze notched at a steady Subtle Observation rather than Outright Stare. To her left, Regina puffs her cheeks and scrunches her nose at the baby girl kicking socked feet in the bouncy chair, smiling at the shrieking giggles spilling forth.

 _That's gonna be me a year from now, sitting there, having spit bubbles blown in my face_.

Emma breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth, trying to settle herself as her chest tightens again, and glances at the microwave clock. Henry will be home from school any minute. Her window of time is closing. She just needs to keep reminding herself that she deals with far more ridiculous things on a regular basis. This question she's been psyching herself up to ask Regina for the last half hour is nothing compared to dispatching a chernabog from the roof of her bug.

Be cool, be calm, be casual.

"Regina, have you ever had an issue with medicine…" Emma trails off, searching for the right word. Crap, she should have rehearsed this more. "Interacting weird with your magic? Like the science-y part and the magic-y part not getting along?"

Good. That was good. That sounded normal, right?

Regina wipes spit off the baby's chin with a burp cloth and tosses the damp rag over her shoulder, brows raised as she crosses the kitchen and retrieves a red teething ring from the fridge.

"In what way?"

Emma wedges her paring knife under the mottled red and yellow skin of the honeycrisp with deliberate, slow flicks of her wrist. "Like antibiotics, zinc supplements, birth control. You know. Stuff."

 _Smooth, Swan_. She cringes inside as Regina quirks the corner of her mouth into a saddish, knowing smile.

Subtlety never was either of their strong suits.

But Regina starts rattling off a story of when she had to modify the dosage of a treatment for a nasty flu-like infection that sank its teeth into her back in the Enchanted Forest, and somewhere amidst the magical theoretics and the horrifying symptoms, Emma starts watching the baby tug her fuzzy pink sock off her tiny little foot instead of listening.

This could be a second chance. She could make actual memories of holding her son (or daughter) as an infant, not the spurious flood of recollections implanted by a curse. First step, first haircut, first tricycle, first day of school, scraped knee, nightmare during thunderstorm moments; they're all hers for the taking now.

Emma's neck flushes, the world gone hot and dizzying for moment as her thoughts derail. Everything is happening at once, why is everything happening right now, why is she here at Regina's when she should have told Killian by now (three weeks, three weeks of passing it off as the flu, who is she fucking kidding), and he knows something's wrong, he's not stupid, why—

"Emma."

Regina's hand is warm on her wrist, and then it's gone. It's something she's always appreciated about her son's other mother; she never grabs for attention, rarely touches aside from a moment here or there until she's sure you're listening and then she retreats.

Except for Henry. Always the exception for Henry, for Roland, for the baby. Henry is Emma's exception, too.

"If you or Hook are concerned, I can show you some herbal alternatives."

"No, that's okay."

They peel apples until Henry barrels through the front door, Roland chasing after him as they pound up the stairs, Regina's, _No running in the house!,_ lost under a swarm of giggles and theatrical roars.

"You're sure you're only here for Henry and not all three of them?" Regina tickles the baby's tummy, resting most of her weight on the counter.

Jesus, she looks tired, and as Emma sets aside the last apple she realizes she's done most of the work and Regina's just been sitting this whole time, about five minutes away from falling asleep on her feet.

"Sadly I draw the line at one kid."

Two.

She can't say one.

Two. Her chest tightens again.

Fuck.

At least Regina can keep a secret, which is amazing, because she pulls Emma aside as Henry clomps out the door with his backpack and a duffel bag of clean clothes, a hasty promise that he _will_ do his homework this weekend flying from his lips as Regina presses a ziploc baggie stuffed with green packets into her hand. For a second she thinks this is the herbal concoction Regina mentioned earlier, until she reads the typeface printed in an elegant arc above the graphic of a mint leaf.

"Peppermint tea helped your mother," Regina says, and, blessedly, nothing else as Emma swallows hard on the front porch and Henry calls to her from the bug, eager to get underway.

/~/

Killian skims his fingers along the length of her backbone, his callouses a pleasant roughness against her skin, back and forth, back and forth. If she were inclined to purr, she would, the heady lull he's spun her into loosening her tongue along with her limbs.

"I'm pregnant," she whispers to the sparse black hairs dotting his chest, her hand cupping the side of his ribs. His breath hitches, catching in her palm as his fingers stumble over the notches in her spine while the thump THUMP of two heartbeats (three) stretches in the purplish gray of infinity.

When the pirate breathes again, it's with a relieved, _Finally_ , at once irritating and endearing, and she pinches his side. He yelps and chuckles into her sleep-tousled hair, pressing a scratchy kiss to her forehead. "I was wondering if you were going to wait until the lass or lad's first birthday to tell me."

"It's not funny."

"Oh, come on, it's a little funny."

"I don't think so." Emma sits up and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear.

Killian sobers, tapping the touch lamp on the nightstand with his wrist and scooting back against the headboard next to her. "I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to belittle your feelings."

"No, I'm sorry." Emma pulls her knees to her chest below the blankets, allowing them to lean against Killian's legs as she turns into his embrace, arms folded and tucked across her chest. "I should have told you weeks ago."

"You've told me now. That's all that matters."

It's really not all that matters, not at all, but it's nice of him to say anyway as he curls his arm around her and rests his cheek on the top of her head, wrapping her in warmth, braving her icy toes tucked beneath his thigh without comment.

"I don't know if I can do this again."

The admission slithers off her tongue before she can stuff it back in the cage of her mind.

"Aye." It's more of a sigh ruffling the remnants of her nighttime plait than a word of agreement, but it resonates with the flickering, exhausted chaos inside her and sums the total of her being as she presses her lips into a thin, tight line. "I know this isn't what you would have chosen."

Emma nods against Killian's shoulder, sniffling. "Regina knows."

He stiffens before she has a chance to explain.

"I had to ask her about my magic. I mean, we took precautions so this wouldn't happen, and it did, so I wondered, and she guessed. Like you." Her hand shifts to his chest, and he relaxes. "How did you guess, by the way?"

"I'm a connoisseur of beautiful things, love. You've gone soft and full and lovely here and here," he says, dancing his fingers in idle patterns below her collarbone, then sweeping down her side to curve of her hip.

"I thought the morning sickness would've given me away."

"Dead giveaway." He nods and smirks, and she huffs as she snuggles further into his side. "However, it's not a very romantic thing to say to your girlfriend at two o'clock in the morning after a heartfelt confession."

Emma hums and closes her eyes. Two in the morning. That's why her eyelids feel weighted with anchors. Well, that and the stowaway. She'd forgotten how exhausting creating new life was.

"Come on. It's late. Let's get some sleep, and we can talk after first light, before your boy wakes." Killian rubs her shoulder, and she frowns because there's more, so much more they need to talk about, that she needs to get out in the open, but he's right.

"Okay."

They slide down in the bed until their heads are nestled in the pillows once again, his hand trailing soft along the length of her back as other arm rests warm against her hip, near the softness he spoke of with such reverence.

"I love you, Emma Swan."

She pulls him that much closer and whispers, _I love you more_ , and the tightness in her chest releases.


	8. db i wasn't meant to hear

_dimples believer + things you said i wasn't supposed to hear  
because in my head, the end of 4b never happened_

* * *

"Oh fuck."

Roland looks up from his Captain Underpants book, but Henry's hands wrap around his face, covering his eyes and his mouth as he walks toward the kitchen. He's determined to get this walking while reading thing down by summer break, though if his big brother is gonna keep messing with him it's gonna take longer. Roland swipes his tongue across Henry's hand, grunting a muffled protest. Henry refuses to let go, pulling him backward toward the front door and shushing him.

"You said a bad word," Roland sing-songs when Henry releases him.

"Yep, but you're not gonna tell my mom or your dad because we are going to go out for ice cream."

Roland rolls his eyes, marking his place in his book with his finger. "Like Regina would let us go out this late."

"Trust me, she'll say yes."

Henry's ears burn bright red, a flush creeping up his neck to match, and Roland's scoff turns into a groan.

"Again?"

Henry nods.

"Kissing?"

Henry nods again.

"Worse than kissing?"

A strangled gurgling rises from the back of Henry's throat.

"I want rocky road, then."

"Deal," Henry says. "Go get our jackets."

Roland tosses his book to the console table by the front door as Henry stands to the side of the kitchen door, hollering that they're going to get ice cream and will be back in an hour. There's a minor scuffling, someone bangs an elbow or a knee against a kitchen cabinet as the two boys slip on their coats, and then their parents tumble out of the kitchen, presentable, if a bit flushed and breathless.

"It's a little late for ice cream, isn't it?" Regina says, jumping slightly as Robin's hands slide around her waist and tug her until she's leaning against him.

"It's Friday," Henry points out. "And you've barely been home this week, so we're gonna... leave."

Roland nods and grabs the car keys from the hook inside the closet door, keeping quiet. Henry is much better at talking people into things. He himself is better at sneaking. Between the two of them, it works out.

"Bring me some cherry vanilla, will you?" Robin asks, resting his chin on Regina's shoulder, winking at them.

"Yep."

Regina frowns, but Robin whispers something in her ear that curls a smile across her lips, and she relents. "Drive safe. And bring me some frozen yogurt if they have any?"

"You got it, Mom."

The boys scurry outside, and Henry backs the car out of the driveway, not even grazing the hedge on the passenger side like he usually does.

"I can't believe that worked," Roland says.

Henry chuckles and gives him a high five. "Just remember, you never heard me say the f-word."

"About that. I'm gonna need two scoops to forget something that bad."

"Extortion."

"Business."

"Mom's gonna kill me."

"But not for swearing."

"Two scoops it is."


End file.
